Building Block: Introduction to Knowing Yourself

Let’s forget politics today and talk about you. Or more particularly, knowing yourself. Who are you really? What is your life all about? Why?

Talk about heavy.

But really, isn’t this what it’s all about? You?

You are at the center of your universe. So why shouldn’t your life be about you?

It’s bringing you the experiences your soul came to get. Did you ever stop to think about why they might be important to your soul? Or better yet, what all you took from them that served you, whether pleasant or not?

By soul, I’m referring to that non-physical essence of your personality that you know yourself to be. Whether that is some spiritual entity or a self-identity stored deep within your psyche, it doesn’t matter.

Some, like me, see the soul as sort of an energetic transformer through which we are connected to God as the source of all that is, with his energy flowing into and through us to give us life in this three-dimensional reality.

Journey to the Center of Your Being

Such a belief is unnecessary to know yourself, however. Nevertheless, what I am asking you to do is to turn your attention back upon yourself, looking deep within the layers of your being until you get to whatever is waiting for you there.

Most of us can’t just look inside as if we have x-ray vision. Rather, we have to peel away those layers one by one, examining the conditions and attributes each brings, and their relationship to the situations and events of our outer world.

Inner world. Outer world. I use these terms a lot, so perhaps I should define them. The outer world is the world you see, touch, feel and hear. Whether it is real or maya (the grand illusion) is a great debate best left to the mystics. Let’s just say it is what it is.

Your body is part of that outer world. It is the vehicle through which your soul experiences life here. When it dies, your experiences here stop. In short, it’s your interface between the seen and unseen, and without it there can be no experience as we know it.

Your inner world is everything else.

Your inner world is everything else.

For in reality, your life is happening inside of you. Your thoughts. Your emotions. Your moods and feelings. Your beliefs. Your fears. Your desires. These are the affairs of the psyche.

It is where you perceive, interpret and decide how to interact with your outer world.

As you go deeper, you’ll begin to see your personality more clearly as you remove the rose-colored glasses that have distorted your perceptions of yourself. You will see how you created yourself to be. The self-image. The attitudes. The personality traits and other characteristics that make you you.

Yet still you’re just scratching the surface. For even deeper, hiding from view, are inner conditions that shape how you see and interact with your outer world. False images and misunderstandings from experiences past. Scars from pains you’ve suffered. Walls built by judgments and expectations unmet. Hurts from loves lost. The list is long.

These all affect you and how you conduct your affairs. But still we haven’t come to the core of your awareness yet, much less what lies behind that.

The watcher. The narrator. The inner voices. They are all there, waiting for you to come and explore what they hold in store.

Ah, the voices. If you’re quiet, you’ll hear them.

One, though, I want you to seek above all. It’s the inner voice of your soul.

It whispers to you, calling you to become whole — and to follow its lead to the experiences it will bring to help get you there.

It is there as your guide, dangling the carrot of your desires and whipping you with the stick of your fears and unpleasant experiences to keep you on the path for the life you came to lead. All the while gathering experiences along the way that make you who you are today.

It will tell you who you are and what your life is about. If you can hear your inner voice, ask it. It will answer.

That’s not the only way, however. You can piece it together yourself if you look closely enough. Life lessons and patterns,as well as watershed experiences, provide a pretty good clue. Past lives and karmic echoes do as well. These, though, often take an outside eye to help make sense of what’s going on.

Anyway, you get the picture. There’s a lot going on in you that makes you and your life the way they are. It controls how you think, feel and act. And it ripples outward to influence the behavior of others around you.

If you want peace, whether in your inner world or in your outer one, you will find it mighty hard to find unless you learn to work with your inner conditions and address the hidden factors that help keep the status quo stuck in place.

To start your inner journey, all you have to do is sit quietly. Take a few natural, relaxed breaths. Then speak to that Self within you that is the source of your being.

John is a recovering lawyer, spiritual teacher and sepsis survivor. He speaks for peace through knowing yourself and changing your world. His book, "Whispers in the Silence - Living by the Light of Your Soul," is a guide to listen to your inner voice.

John offers a free report, "5 Minutes That Can Change Your World," at http://bit.ly/1QwNenb, and provides coaching and guidance to awakening souls.

John is a recovering lawyer, spiritual teacher and sepsis survivor. He speaks for peace through knowing yourself and changing your world. His book, "Whispers in the Silence - Living by the Light of Your Soul," is a guide to listen to your inner voice.
John offers a free report, "5 Minutes That Can Change Your World," at http://bit.ly/1QwNenb, and provides coaching and guidance to awakening souls.